Two types of ˜21 nt RNAs trigger post-transcriptional gene silencing in animals: small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs). Both siRNAs and miRNAs are produced by the cleavage of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) precursors by Dicer, a nuclease of the RNase III family of dsRNA-specific endonucleases (Bernstein et al., 2001; Billy et al., 2001; Grishok et al., 2001; Hutvágner et al., 2001; Ketting et al., 2001; Knight and Bass, 2001; Paddison et al., 2002; Park et al., 2002; Provost et al., 2002; Reinhart et al., 2002; Zhang et al., 2002; Doi et al., 2003; Myers et al., 2003). siRNAs result when transposons, viruses or endogenous genes express long dsRNA or when dsRNA is introduced experimentally into plant or animal cells to trigger gene silencing, a process known as RNA interference (RNAi) (Fire et al., 1998; Hamilton and Baulcombe, 1999; Zamore et al., 2000; Elbashir et al., 2001a; Hammond et al., 2001; Sijen et al., 2001; Catalanotto et al., 2002). In contrast, miRNAs are the products of endogenous, non-coding genes whose precursor RNA transcripts can form small stem-loops from which mature miRNAs are cleaved by Dicer (Lagos-Quintana et al., 2001; Lau et al., 2001; Lee and Ambros, 2001; Lagos-Quintana et al., 2002; Mourelatos et al., 2002; Reinhart et al., 2002; Ambros et al., 2003; Brennecke et al., 2003; Lagos-Quintana et al., 2003; Lim et al., 2003a; Lim et al., 2003b). miRNAs are encoded by genes distinct from the mRNAs whose expression they control.
siRNAs were first identified as the specificity determinants of the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway (Hamilton and Baulcombe, 1999; Hammond et al., 2000), where they act as guides to direct endonucleolytic cleavage of their target RNAs (Zamore et al., 2000; Elbashir et al., 2001a). Prototypical siRNA duplexes are 21 nt, double-stranded RNAs that contain 19 base pairs, with two-nucleotide, 3′ overhanging ends (Elbashir et al., 2001a; Nykänen et al., 2001; Tang et al., 2003). Active siRNAs contain 5′ phosphates and 3′ hydroxyls (Zamore et al., 2000; Boutla et al., 2001; Nykänen et al., 2001; Chiu and Rana, 2002). Similarly, miRNAs contain 5′ phosphate and 3′ hydroxyl groups, reflecting their production by Dicer (Hutvágner et al., 2001; Mallory et al., 2002).
In plants, miRNAs regulate the expression of developmentally important proteins, often by directing mRNA cleavage (Rhoades et al., 2002; Reinhart et al., 2002; Llave et al., 2002a; Llave et al., 2002b; Xie et al., 2003; Kasschau et al., 2003; Tang et al., 2003; Chen, 2003). Whereas plant miRNA's show a high degree of complementarity to their mRNA targets, animal miRNA's have only limited complementarity to the mRNAs whose expression they control (Lee et al., 1993; Wightman et al., 1993; Olsen and Ambros, 1999; Reinhart et al., 2000; Slack et al., 2000; Abrahante et al., 2003; Brennecke et al., 2003; Lin et al., 2003; Xu et al., 2003). Animal miRNAs are thought to repress mRNA translation, rather than promote target mRNA destruction (Lee et al., 1993; Wrightman et al., 1993; Olsen and Ambross, 1999; Brennecke et al., 2003). Recent evidence suggests that the two classes of small RNAs are functionally interchangeable, with the choice of mRNA cleavage or translational repression determined solely by the degree of complementarity between the small RNA and its target (Schwarz and Zamore, 2002; Hutvágner and Zamore, 2002; Zeng et al., 2003; Doench et al., 2003). Furthermore, siRNAs and miRNAs are found in similar, if not identical complexes, suggesting that a single, bifunctional complex—the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC)-mediates both cleavage and translational control (Mourelatos et al., 2002; Hutvágner and Zamore, 2002; Caudy et al., 2002; Martinez et al., 2002). Nonetheless, studies in both plants and animals show that at steady-state, siRNAs and miRNAs differ in at least one crucial respect: in vivo and in vitro, siRNAs are double-stranded, whereas miRNAs are single-stranded (Lee et al., 1993; Hamilton and Baulcombe, 1999; Pasquinelli et al., 2000; Reinhart et al., 2000; Elbashir et al., 2001a; Djikeng et al., 2001; Nykänen et al., 2001; Lagos-Quintana et al., 2001; Lau et al., 2001; Lee and Ambros, 2001; Lagos-Quintana et al., 2002; Reinhart et al., 2002; Llave et al., 2002a; Silhavy et al., 2002; Llave et al., 2002b; Tang et al., 2003).
siRNA duplexes can assemble into RISC in the absence of target mRNA, both in vivo and in vitro (Tuschl et al., 1999; Hammond et al., 2000; Zamore et al., 2000). Each RISC contains only one of the two strands of the siRNA duplex (Martinez et al., 2002). Since siRNA duplexes have no foreknowledge of which siRNA strand will guide target cleavage, both strands must assemble with the appropriate proteins to form a RISC. Previously, we and others showed that both siRNA strands are competent to direct RNAi (Tuschl et al., 1999; Hammond et al., 2000; Zamore et al., 2000; Elbashir et al., 2001b; Elbashir et al., 2001a; Nykänen et al., 2001). That is, the anti-sense strand of an siRNA can direct cleavage of a corresponding sense RNA target, whereas the sense siRNA strand directs cleavage of an anti-sense target. In this way, siRNA duplexes appear to be functionally symmetric. The ability to control which strand of an siRNA duplex enters into the RISC complex to direct cleavage of a corresponding RNA target would provide a significant advance for both research and therapeutic applications of RNAi technology.